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Before and After: When My Old Life Died, a New Life Began

On March 25, 2014 / Bereavement and End of Life, Family and Friends, My Land and Home / 56 Comments

My life is divided into Before—the time between meeting my husband Vic in 1966 and his death in 2008—and After. I am no longer a wife and partner. I am still a mother, although my adult sons

Danger Lurked in the Sweetest Days: Artis Henderson’s ‘Un-Remarried Widow’

On March 18, 2014 / Bereavement and End of Life / 12 Comments

Artis Henderson didn’t expect to fall in love with a conservative, church-going soldier training for war in Iraq. As she writes in her elegant and poetic memoir Un-Remarried Widow, “there was danger lurking in the sweetest days.”

Sharing Our Grief Lightens the Load

On March 11, 2014 / Bereavement and End of Life, Family and Friends / 18 Comments

“I miss Dad,” I told Mom after my father died when I was 14. “I don’t know what to do.” “I can’t talk about it,” Mom said. “I have to go to work. I don’t want to

When I Was Your Favorite Birthday Gift

On March 4, 2014 / Bereavement and End of Life / 42 Comments

On March 7, 2008 when you turned 67, cancer was winning. We feared it would be your last birthday. At dawn, I heard muffled banging of wood against metal as you loaded the wood stove. Upstairs, I

Blessing the Water, Blessing our Life

On February 25, 2014 / Nature, Political Action, Spirituality / 18 Comments

A small group of women and men gathers at the south end of Seneca Lake for a sacred water ritual of gratitude and protection. I wrap a Tibetan yak wool blanket over my winter coat. It’s 15

Healed by Nature, Inspired by Love

On February 18, 2014 / My Land and Home, Nature / 33 Comments

In 1967, Vic persuaded me to lie in a sleeping bag on the cold ground in March. We held each other while waves of green, yellow, and pink tinted the sky—a divine aurora borealis lightshow. It was

A Survival Guide for Life After Loss: Tending the Spirit

On February 11, 2014 / Bereavement and End of Life, Spirituality / 24 Comments

1. Pray or meditate—in your own way or according to your spiritual or religious tradition. Consider spending part of each day in silence rather than seeking constant distraction. Meditation and prayer comfort us. In silence, we honor

A Survival Guide for Life after Loss: Ten Ways to Nurture your Soul

On February 4, 2014 / Bereavement and End of Life, Creativity, Spirituality / 26 Comments

This is the second of three Survival Guides. The first focused on Body and the next will be about Spirit. 1. Share your grief with close friends. Steve said my grief allowed him to feel his own

A Survival Guide for Life After Loss: Body

On January 28, 2014 / Bereavement and End of Life, Health / 24 Comments

This is the first of three Survival Guides: Body, Soul, and Spirit During my husband’s illness and after his death, grief exhausted me. Who cared about staying healthy? Some part of me did, but it was hard

Who’s in Charge of This Crazy Life? Catherine Tidd’s ‘Confessions of a Mediocre Widow’

On January 21, 2014 / Bereavement and End of Life, Creativity / 16 Comments

“Why? Why…Why did this happen?” Catherine Tidd yelled at a pastor she barely knew. “We did everything right. I don’t know a better person than Brad. Why did this happen? What am I going to do? How am